Côte des Blancs

Six Grand Cru villages in the Côte des Blancs

Chouilly, Cramant, Avize, Oger, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oiry form the familiar six Grand Cru village names of the Côte des Blancs. The Champagne appellation specification lists the permitted Grand Cru communes. Vertus is another important grower base in the area, but is not one of those six Grand Cru names.

Chardonnay is the defining grape on this chalk slope south of Épernay. Blanc de blancs means a wine made from white grape varieties; the Comité Champagne’s explanation distinguishes that description from a universal claim that every blanc de blancs must be exclusively Chardonnay. The bottle’s stated varieties and origin carry the precise information.

Village landmarks: Parc Vix, Cramant and Chouilly

Avize’s Parc Vix provides a vineyard panorama and a landscaped water-themed walk. Cramant marks its entrance with an 8.6-metre Champagne bottle. The published PR116 route connects the two villages and includes the Cramant belvedere, its vineyard lodge and Parc Vix.

Chouilly has a vineyard garden and a wetland garden. Oiry is crossed by the Tarnauds and retains 19th-century wash houses, according to Épernay Agglo. These are named public-landscape stops alongside producer appointments; the gardens are not entrances to a private wine estate.

At Bergères-lès-Vertus, Mont Aimé rises to 240 metres. The tourist office describes an orientation table and a view over the Champagne plain. Mont Aimé is a distinct southern outing from the Avize–Cramant loop, so its viewpoint should not be labelled Parc Vix.

PR116 Boucle d’Avize: 9.1 km, three hours

Épernay Agglo publishes the PR116 Boucle d’Avize at 9.1 km with an indicative three-hour duration. Start points are place de la Mairie in Cramant, Parc Vix or place Léon-Bourgeois in Avize. The official route sheet provides the sequence and downloadable map.

The circuit passes through the two communes, vineyard paths and forest edge, joining part of the GRP de la Côte des Blancs with yellow-and-red waymarking. It reaches the Cramant belvedere and Parc Vix, both identified with picnic areas. These figures describe the signed loop, not the transfer from Épernay to Avize.

De Sousa: 12 place Léon Bourgeois, Avize

De Sousa’s official contact page states that visits and tastings are by appointment only. It advertises French, English and French Sign Language, and gives 12 place Léon Bourgeois, Avize, as the reception address. Contact contact@champagnedesousa.com or +33 3 26 57 53 29.

The contact page lists weekday reception at 08:00–12:00 and 14:00–17:00. It also retains a dated summer-closure notice for 2024; that old notice is not a 2026 closure announcement. No fixed tour price or named ticket package is inferred from the enquiry form. Read the De Sousa guide.

Larmandier-Bernier: 19 avenue du Général de Gaulle, Vertus

Larmandier-Bernier asks visitors to make an appointment and advertises weekday-morning estate visits in Vertus. Its address is 19 avenue du Général de Gaulle and its direct email is champagne@larmandier.fr; telephone +33 3 26 52 13 24.

The official page identifies an electric-vehicle charging station at the estate. It does not publish a named fixed-price visitor programme on the checked contact page, so this guide links the direct appointment form instead of inventing a tasting duration, number of pours or fee.

Les Avisés: a named Avize table

Les Avisés is at 59 rue de Cramant, Avize. The Épernay tourist office lists the restaurant under gastronomic and traditional cuisine and the same address as a hotel-restaurant. Contact +33 3 26 57 70 06 or use the property’s own website for restaurant reservations.

The named Avize location can serve a day involving De Sousa and Parc Vix; Les Avisés is not a central Épernay restaurant. No restaurant opening night, meal price, hotel rate or cellar appointment with Jacques Selosse is inferred from the hotel’s listing.

Village stays and Épernay connections

Search Find hotels in Avize,%20France">Avize stays, Find hotels in Cramant,%20France">Cramant stays or Find hotels in Vertus,%20France">Vertus stays for the selected producer base. Find hotels in %C3%89pernay,%20France">Épernay accommodation serves the railway station and avenue, with a separate transfer to the villages. CJ Booking.com links may earn us commission from eligible reservations.

The region has no single station or road distance. The transport guide lists named taxi and bicycle-hire contacts; give the actual village and producer address when arranging the journey. Tasting days require a non-drinking driver or booked transport.

Épernay and Aÿ as separate visits

Épernay’s Avenue de Champagne is 1.5 km long, with Moët & Chandon at 18, Boizel at 46 and Mercier at 68. The verified entry products begin at €48, €40 and €25 respectively, checked October 2026. The Épernay guide gives the named visits, durations and booking links.

Aÿ adds Pressoria at 11 boulevard Pierre Cheval, with €18 full adult admission and a 90-minute average visit in the tourist-office listing. Hautvillers adds Saint-Sindulphe church, the 28-sign discovery trail and the Belvédère Dom Pérignon. Neither village is a Côte des Blancs Grand Cru stop on the six-name list above.

Le Mesnil-sur-Oger: Saint-Nicolas and the village garden

Église Saint-Nicolas is on rue de l’Église in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. The Épernay tourist office lists it as protected religious heritage and separately identifies a replica of the Lourdes grotto on the same street. The church and grotto are village landmarks; they do not establish public access to a private producer’s courtyard.

Le Clos Saint-Vincent is the named vineyard garden at Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. Épernay’s tourism directory includes it among the village outdoor attractions. Combine its public interpretation with the producer address on your reservation; the garden is a separate stop from a paid tasting at a Champagne estate.

Bonnaire: 120 rue d’Épernay, Cramant

The Comité Champagne lists Bonnaire’s cellar visits and tastings as available by reservation. The estate’s address is 120 rue d’Épernay, Cramant, with contact@bonnaire.com and +33 3 26 57 50 85 given by the official tourist-office listing. This adds a specific Cramant booking route alongside De Sousa at Avize and Larmandier-Bernier at Vertus.

Bonnaire’s directory entry offers a cellar visit and Champagne tasting, without establishing a fixed named package, price or number of pours in the retrieved description. Use the producer’s contact for that choice. A walk through Cramant’s vineyard landscape does not include admission to Bonnaire’s production spaces.

Parc Vix and Chouilly’s wetland garden

The Parc Vix interpretation follows water through a landscaped route with a planted filtering basin, a bubble path and a pond. The Épernay Agglo nature leaflet describes white stepping-stone bubbles across water in a Champagne-flute shape. Épernay’s tourism office also identifies outdoor musical instruments and interpretation adapted for families and visually impaired visitors.

Chouilly’s Jardin humide is an interpretation path beneath the village church, with panels about flora and fauna. The tourist office describes access on foot or by bicycle and a riverside barbecue. Chouilly’s Jardin de Vignes is a separate attraction; the two gardens should not be given the same map label.

Four village addresses for an overnight stay

Le Relais du Vigneron is at 2 avenue Louis Lenoir in Vertus, within the commune of Blancs-Coteaux. Épernay Tourisme lists 43 rooms and suites and the adjoining restaurant Terre de Craie. The hotel’s official booking link is available through its tourist-office listing; the restaurant is a separate meal reservation.

La Goutte d’Or is at 2 rue Ernest Vallée in Avize. The tourist office identifies parking, a courtyard, shared garden, terrace or balcony, private bathroom facilities and bicycle hire or loan. Its listing also identifies accommodation upstairs. For a room without stairs, send the specific requirement to the property before choosing a room; the presence of a courtyard does not establish a step-free route to every bedroom.

Les Avisés is at 59 rue de Cramant in Avize, in a neoclassical house associated with wine production since 1805. Marne Tourisme lists ten rooms, including one identified for visitors with reduced mobility. The property combines a hotel and restaurant; the hotel room and restaurant table have separate reservation arrangements. Its ten-room scale differs substantially from the 43-room Vertus hotel.

The Hostellerie du Mont Aimé is at 4–6 rue de Vertus in Bergères-lès-Vertus. Its own regional guide gives Mont Aimé as 240 metres high and estimates the journey from the hotel at five minutes by car or forty minutes on foot. Those are the property’s estimates for that departure point, not a general walking time from every Côte des Blancs village.

The Pâtis reserve: ponds above the Chardonnay villages

The Pâtis d’Oger et du Mesnil-sur-Oger nature reserve was classified in June 2006. Épernay Tourisme describes more than 300 temporary and permanent ponds. This is a wetland and woodland stop above the wine villages: the reserve’s pond count refers to the protected landscape, not three hundred individually signposted visitor attractions.

The tourist office identifies facilities near the lake: a children’s play area, picnic area, pétanque ground, arboretum and fitness trail. It also lists viewpoints across the Côte des Blancs and an orientation table. These named facilities make the lake area a separate family stop from the appointment-only cellar visits in Avize and Vertus.

The tourist office’s cycle-route descriptions trace the former sheep pastures at the Tuilerie d’Oger, on the edge of the forest above the reserve. The routes also pass Grauves and the western slopes of the Montagne d’Avize. Follow the downloaded circuit for its specified starting point and route number; the walking circuit PR116 and the cycle loops are different products.

Larmandier-Bernier: the villages behind the labels

Larmandier-Bernier describes a 19-hectare, organically certified vineyard with an average vine age of 35 years. Its plots lie in Premier Cru Vertus and Grand Cru Cramant, Chouilly, Oger and Avize. Chardonnay predominates, alongside some Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. Those five village names identify the estate’s own vineyard holdings; they are not the full list of Côte des Blancs communes.

The estate vinifies each cru, grape variety and parcel separately. Its winemaking account describes indigenous yeasts, fermentation and ageing in barrels and large wooden foudres, including Stockinger vessels, and almost a year on the lees without racking or filtration. These production details explain what a visit request at 19 avenue du Général de Gaulle concerns: a working estate with separate parcel wines, not a large visitor train through a public cellar.

The Larmandier-Bernier range includes Latitude, Longitude, Terre de Vertus, Vieille Vigne du Levant, Les Chemins d’Avize, Rosé de Saignée, Cramant Nature and Vertus Rouge. Vertus Rouge is a still wine; the presence of the word Champagne in the producer’s name does not mean every bottle in its range is sparkling. Use the estate’s contact form to request a weekday morning appointment, as specified on its official visitor page.

Saint-Martin and the spring beneath Vertus

Saint-Martin is at 17 rue de l’Église in Vertus. The commune places its probable beginnings in the late 11th century, around 1080, while explicitly stating that its origin is uncertain. It stands over the spring called the Puits Saint-Martin. The church and neighbouring abbey once lay within the enclosure of the counts’ castle.

The commune’s history records the abbey fire of 1167 and the rebuilding of a new Notre-Dame abbey beyond the enclosure with Count Henri I’s agreement. Saint-Martin became a parish church; the count founded the collegiate church of Saint-Jean in 1188. Saint-Jean burned in 1230. The commune does not present the survival of the different buildings as one uninterrupted medieval complex.

Saint-Martin was the only Vertus church left standing after the Revolution. Nothing remains of the Notre-Dame abbey, whose site is now occupied by the cemetery. The name survives in Maison Werlé’s Vendangeoir Notre-Dame. These are separate sites in the commune’s history: the spring and standing church are at rue de l’Église, while the former abbey has disappeared.

Bonnaire: a Cramant booking contact

The Comité Champagne directory lists cellar visits and tastings at Bonnaire, 120 rue d’Épernay, in French and English. The tourist office traces the business to Fernand Bouquemont in 1932 and describes 22 hectares, predominantly Chardonnay. Send the visit request to contact@bonnaire.com or telephone +33 3 26 57 50 85; request the duration and the wines included for the selected appointment.

Terre de Craie in Vertus

Terre de Craie shares the Relais du Vigneron address, 2 avenue Louis Lenoir. Épernay Tourisme gives its contact number as +33 3 26 52 20 76 and links directly to the restaurant’s own reservation page.